Quote:

---

Well, its mainly for traveling around. I dont have a big car so I want my binoculars when I go traveling and i've been looking at the Pentax 20 X 60. But then someone pointed outt eh spotting scopes and it would fit on my camera tripod no problem and, if need be, I could even put my camera on it.

---

Again -- do you want these entirely for astronomy, mostly for astronomy, or hardly at all for astronomy. An awful lot hangs on the answer!

Since astronomy is my primary interest, my small telescope is an astronomical refractor (70-mm) with a 90-degree diagonal. It fits easily just about anywhere -- certainly a lot more easily than the tripod needed to support it.

I took it once on a driving trip around California, and used it many times for astronomy with great pleasure. I used it terrestrially exactly once -- but that one time would have justified bringing it all on its own. We were driving down the Coast Highway north of San Francisco, and had just come to one of the relatively few stretches where it's actually on the coast. I saw a speck on one of the rocks offshore, and my 10X binoculars made it obvious that it was a marine mammal. Setting up the scope and popping in an eyepiece for 60X, I (and my family) got an incredible view of this sea otter (as it turned out to be) feasting on a large fish.

But that's a rare exception. Given a choice between 60X only or 10X only, 10X is far more useful for terrestrial purposes.

Here's one way of looking at it. I think that everybody who's rich enough not to worry about where the next meal is coming from shown own hand-holdable binoculars. For terrestrial use alone, either 7X or 8X, and if astronomy is also desired, perhaps 10X. Hand-holdable binoculars are useful in so many different ways that I can't imagine going through life without them. And you can get a perfectly serviceable pair for $50 if you're lucky, and quite easily for $100. That's a miniscule investment for the pleasure it will bring.

Having done that, you can worry about whether you want bigger binoculars and/or a spotting scope and/or an astronomical telescope as a separate decision.

--------------------
Tony Flanders

eyeglasses
6x15 and 8x32 monoculars
8x25, 7x35, 10x30 IS, 10x50, and 15x70 binoculars
70mm and 100mm achromatic refractors
4.5", 7", and 12.5" Dobs

Post Extras